Several major issues were highlighted by students at the first-ever ‘Bal Gram Sabha’ on Sunday held by the Calangute Panchayat. The issues included hotels releasing sewage near schools, no playgrounds and compound walls around some of the schools, drying of school wells, water scarcity and rainwater entering into the schools due to improper drainage systems and menace of drunken tourists among others. Under such circumstances the ‘Bal Gram Sabha’ can function as an effective tool to highlight the problems faced by the student community. In this context one of the significant suggestions made by the students at the ‘Bal Gram Sabha’ held by the Calangute Panchayat, was to provide a complaint-box facility in schools so that the student can write their grievances which should be forwarded to the government officials by the school authorities. Various panchayats and even civic bodies in the state need to have such meetings between the authorities and the students on a regular basis. The concerned authorities need to look into the grievances of students and take remedial steps.
